Hey Folks,
I know a number of the people who visit here have blogs of their own, and most, from what I have seen, also use wordpress as their blogging software. Lately, it seems, some automated spam program has been spamming wordpress blogs with comments that appear like this:
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or similar. The spam blocker, Akismet, for WordPress doesn’t seem to be too good at picking them up. So what to do? Continue reading
hey Folks,
Anyone see Napoleon Dynamite? Do you remember Deb, the girl with ponytail on the side? 5th picture down on this page; we convinced Rebecca on our Iceberg Lake to Bremner Mines trip to wear her hair on the side too – she wasn’t convinced it would look so good, but as usual, the guide knew best. Whaddaya think?
Cheers
Carl
So you see here how to treat life-threatening wounds in the backcountry – with a band aid …. NOT!!!
🙂
Sergei’s new nickname on this trip is ‘bandaid’ – for any ailment, broken skin or not, he requested, and was given, bandaids. For a small cut on his thumb, a bandaid. For a blister, a bandaid. For a headache, a bandaid. For a sinus infection, a bandaid. For hunger, bandaids.
Bandaid will be coming back in 2009 for another trip, and I’m sure Johnson & Johnson are glad to hear that. 🙂
Cheers
Carl
hey Folks,
Sorry about the delay .. no internet access in the cabin. We do have fresh snow on the ground, after a good dusting all day long, and more on the way tonight, it appears.
Nothing really new to tell – I’ve been trying to shoot some night-time photos, start trails, to no avail. Digital really sucks for that.
Thanks for all the comments in the interim, I need more computer time to reply to all of them. For now, just ‘thanks’.
If you haven’t read ‘The practice of the wild’, by Gary Snyder, check it out. Great book!
I’ll try to get something more postworthy up soon.
Cheers
Carl
Hey Folks,
Here’s a follow up to my recent post on proposals to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska. Whilst that post concentrated on facts and figures and data and so forth, I think greater arguments ought be made. As you can see from a cursory read of that post, it’s too easy for folks to cut up a pie in any way they choose in order that it might yield the slices that best fit their appetite. I suppose part of the reason for this is that the pie itself is, ultimately, generated by our cultural institutions, our way of living, our way of seeing the world.
The potential number of barrels of oil the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge may yield is somewhat of an abstraction – what constitutes a “barrel”, for example? How large is the footprint of a drilling rig? How many caribou will that impact?
Any measurements we choose to use are simply yardsticks of our own worldview (I guarantee you, for example, that the Porcupine Caribou Herd would, if asked, probably give a very different answer to even our cleverest scientists). What if we don’t look upon the world with that viewpoint, however? How else might we be able to see the world, and in what ways might we possibly benefit from a different angle? Continue reading
Hey Folks,
A recent thread on global warming and other environmental issues posed the question: “Are we having fun yet?” What a fantastic question to ask of ourselves in the year 2008. This question hit me square between the eyes; that’s really the issue here, isn’t it, I thought. That’s exactly what’s going on. Recent years have given more people more access to more goods and services, more art, more sport, more information, even to more other people, than ever before. With the internet we have access to the entire world at our fingertips. I can learn about almost anything in a matter of minutes. I can order plated Patagonian Alpaca Wool rugs in a few seconds, with the click of a mouse. I can order Goat’s Milk chocolate from Israel in the time it takes me to write this sentence. Figuratively, we have everything, literally we have more than anyone has ever had before. We live, in every sense of the word, in a time of abundance. And yet we seem bent on ‘more’. Why aren’t we happy yet, I wondered. (note: before you read on, this gets kinda long) Continue reading
Hey Folks,
Well, guess where I’m headed in the next day or so? Back to the shack. I believe, and am putting my trust in, that the van problem is solved. Running some errands here in town on friday brought on the ole ‘cut out and die’ problem yet again .. of course, sitting in traffic in Anchorage, which is always nice. Fortunately, it started again, and I headed straight for my good friends at the Dealership. I’ll spare you all the sordid details, but when I got there 5 minutes later, it ran fine, started right up, etc. No problems. Fortunately, as I was set to leave, yet again, it wouldn’t restart. I walked back inside, told the Service guy it wouldn’t start, he called the mechanic out, and we walked back outside to the vehicle. The mechanic hops it and starts it right up. Beautiful. Now who looks like an even bigger idiot? So the mechanic sat in it a few minutes, turning the key, watching and listening to it, and then, miraculously, it wouldn’t start again. It finally did the problem in the hands of a mechanic. I love my van!!!! 🙂 He looks at the lights, etc, for about 2 seconds, and says, “let’s pop the hood – I might be able to save you some coin”. Continue reading
Hey Folks,
Here’s my first attempt to bring an mp3 (Dad, that’s an audio file) online.
Plugin for the audio broke. I removed the player.
I have no idea if this will work. This is a tune I recorded with a few friends of mine years ago, for an album a group of John Hiatt fans recorded, called We Love The Jerk. The album is named, tongue-in-cheek, after one of his songs called “She Loves the Jerk”. Each person who wanted to recorded a song, and submitted it to the group, where the compilation was put together, including a cool album cover, and CDs shipped out to the John Hiatt fan club. Kind of a fun little project.
This tune is me playing guitars, my good friend Steve F playing bass, Steve Lusk singing his a** off, Chip Lunsford playing drums and Randy Hoexter playing piano. Randy recorded it at his studio. I really need to get in and do some more recording/writing and get some tunes online — maybe that’s another project I should finish. The song, Slow Turning, is the title track on John Hiatt’s “Slow Turning” album .. one of his best efforts, IMO. Definitely check out that album.
The photo is a friend of mine, Nate, way down in Futaleufu, Chile, right now, about to run the 3rd rapid of the Baker River, or Rio Baker – big, big water. Nate got smashed! 🙂
Cheers
Carl
Hey Folks,
I was going to write tonight about another company that I’ve had great dealings with, and do a little plug for them, but I’ve changed my mind. The news has been all about the Exxon Valdez case, so maybe I’ll make a few notes here about this subject. For those of you who haven’t been following it (and I haven’t followed this latest round too closely), the US Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments from Exxon and the plaintiffs, folks from the the Prince William Sound, Alaska area, specifically concerning punitive damages. I’m no lawyer, so my comments are worth the price you’re paying to read them – but I’ll share them here regardless. 🙂
In late March 1989 the Exxon Valdez oil tanker dumped nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound. These estimates come largely from simple math – 53 million (the number of gallons originally onboard), minus what was later reclaimed from the vessel equalled 10.8 million gallons missing, i.e., spilled. Many watch groups argue these estimates, though widely accepted, are underreported, because much of the oil recovered from the ship was diluted with sea water. The accident occurred, investigations found, primarily because the ship’s captain was drunk and sleeping at the time. Continue reading
hey Folks,
So whilst I’m locked down in the dungeon of Anchorage, waiting on the mechanics to tell me my van is fine, and any possible breakdowns were/will be my own doing, I’m dealing with another issue. My backpacking/guiding website, Expeditions Alaska was set up, with the help of a friend Bugsy, a fantastic artist from Atlanta (now in LA), years ago, and hosted, at the Bugs’ recommendation, on digitalinet.com. Well, it’s been an adventure, but digitalinet can go to he**.
Their website indicates 24/7 tech support, and toll free phone support. Their website fails to provide any phone # or contact information, other than a standard form to fill out, at all. Not even an email address. I did, via extensive Google searching, extract a few of phone numbers that were supposedly related to digitalinet.com .. 2 of them were no longer working, the other 2 both yielded immediate voice mail messages, and I couldn’t get anyone to return a single call from either of them. Continue reading